A True Gentleman
Title: A True Gentleman (15/?)
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-NC17
Warnings: AU, angst, art geekery
Summary: Uni fic.
A/N: Sorry for the wait. Actually, I think I did pretty good considering I lost all of this exactly a month ago. Luckily I remembered a lot and it lit a fire under my ass to finish it.
Dom strode up to the old brick Victorian, checking his tie and buttoning his jacket. The weather had finally granted the city a reprieve, sunny enough during the day to melt most of the remaining snow, but the evening was still crisply cold when the light fell. He gave a little shiver as he descended the sunken concrete steps and knocked.
A few moments ticked by before Billy threw open the door, his eyes tripping down Dom’s shiny silk tie and waistcoat under his jacket, looking distraught. "Shite. Dom, I’m not going to be dressed properly for wherever we’re going. I look like a four pound wino compared to you!"
He looked nothing of the sort, actually, wearing the denims Dom had liked from before with a light blue shirt, a quirky striped tie and a charcoal suit jacket he hadn’t seen. Still, Billy’s hands tugged at his clothes, backing away from the threshold toward his bedroom. "I’ll change to trousers. Change this awful tie too, Maggie gave it to me for a birthday and it doesn’t fucking go with anything-"
Dom shut the door and caught him by an arm, turning him back around to fix the tie he was attempting to shred. "I think you look fine."
Billy stared back doubtfully. "You’re just saying that. How do you pull off jeans with a jacket and tie like that, but when I try it, I just look like a complete arse?"
"Looks to me like you’re pulling it off," Dom reassured, turning him loose again. "You look like a beatnik art professor. Not too far off the map for you, really."
"Is it alright?" he asked, still concerned, "For wherever we’re going? Where are we going?"
"It’s fine, Bills," Dom repeated, intent on keeping their destination a secret. "They’re not all that tight-arsed about what you wear anyway. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve probably been there before, so if they let the likes of us in once, they’ll do it again, eh? You look good." He deliberately let his eyes linger, taking Billy in and hoping those words resonated from the last time he’d said them.
Billy continued to fidget, shrugging against the somewhat snug fit in the shoulder of his jacket, tugging at his collar and the lay of the tie, scrubbing a hand up through his hair before wildly trying to flatten it back down again. Pocketing his own hands, Dom simply watched his discomfort with a wry smile. When Billy finally noticed, he blurted a nervous laugh. "This is weird, Dom," he said anxiously, "I just... don’t really know how to approach this."
Dom grinned, nodding in complete agreement. The two of them, going on a date of all things. It was weird. He jingled his keys in his pocket, then pulled them out. Better get them going before Billy changed his mind entirely. "Should we-?"
"Aye, I suppose we should," Billy answered swiftly, grabbing for his own keys to lock up behind them.
They sat in silence as Dom drove, and even with the music turned low between them it felt similar to all the drives to Billy’s job; little in the way of conversation, with Billy staring out the passenger’s window and chewing at his thumbnail. As they came to the bridge, he turned sharply to Dom. "You’re not taking me to Morton’s are you?"
Dom did a double-take at him, being sure to look a bit wide-eyed and guilty until Billy’s expression tilted a little more toward mortifying horror. Then he grinned and said, "‘Course not." Billy exhaled with relief as he continued, "I figured we’d eat later." He glanced over doubtfully, "Unless, you hungry now? I can change the reservation..."
"No, no," Billy replied quickly, waving him off, "I mean, if you made one, don’t change it. ‘S a big hassle."
"Good. I didn’t make one," Dom flashed him another wide grin. A couple of weighted seconds passed as Dom drove, feeling Billy’s hard eyes trying to parse him out, tiring already of the tricks and jokes. He reached across the console to squeeze Billy’s knee. "Relax, Bills, I’m just trying to make you laugh. You’re making me nervous."
"You’re nervous?" Billy asked incredulously.
"Yeah, I’m nervous," Dom nodded, shrugging at his own honesty. "I don’t really do this sort of thing either, you know?"
They fell silent again as he kept driving. It was the truth; of all the relationships he’d had over the years, none of them had involved this, wining and dining a person to get to know him, to strengthen bonds, as a means to an end. Or a beginning. Dom wasn’t even sure he’d ever had what most people construed as a real relationship. He’d had mates, friends with benefits, one night stands, and crushes that never amounted to anything, but never anything truly resembling what he was tentatively beginning to fantasize about getting out of this. This whole thing with Billy was unknown territory entirely; frightening and exciting all at once.
As he finally turned on the street to their destination, he heard Billy give a low laugh of recognition and smiled himself as they passed the front of the Boston Museum of Fine Art and drove around into its car park. "See? I told you you’d been here before."
"Yeah," Billy answered as they got out of the car and he looked up at the façade with all the familiarity of an old friend. "It’s been a long time though. A year, at least."
"Really?" Dom questioned, "I’d have thought you’d be camped out here every weekend."
"I haven’t had that kind of time in ages," Billy muttered wistfully.
Dom paid the admission for both of them and opened up a pamphlet listing all of the permanent and visiting exhibitions. "Anything you really want to see?" he asked, very aware of Billy hovering close to read over his shoulder, "The Renaissance halls, of course."
Billy’s hand came over his arm to jab at the pamphlet excitedly, "Ooh, they’ve got a Manet exhibition! And Neo-Classics and Romanticism!"
Dom grinned, "Alright. And I want to see this: Early British Photographers. And this: Sketches in Bohemian Paris. Good?"
Billy smiled back at him, a real, wide smile, bright-eyed as he nearly bounded over to the map on the wall to locate the rooms where their choices were housed. Dom bit his lip and followed. This was exactly why he’d brought him here.
Two hours later, after they’d been not-so-delicately urged to exit as the museum was closing for the night, Dom had them tucked into a booth at a quiet little bistro, and Billy was still going on about the art they’d seen.
"...and then with the Industrial Revolution, everything changed, and the Romantics-who were all about the beauty and emotion of the natural world-were just left completely by the wayside."
Dom leaned chin-on-hand, watching the way Billy’s neat hands gestured as he spoke across the table, the nuances of his expressions. He enjoyed all of it, from the glimmers he’d seen in class to the way Billy had lead him around the museum and spoken at length about his favorite pieces, obscure details about their origins and the artists, his voice rich and melodic in the big echoing rooms. This was how Billy truly came to life, talking about what he loved to someone who would give him an audience.
"It’s devastating to think about, you know. Friedrich was so well respected and successful early in his career, but then he died a recluse, completely forgotten. And then years later his work had become popular again, but with the ideals of the wrong side of the Second World War, so even in his death he was shunned for decades. Most people nowadays have never even heard of him." Billy glanced down at his plate of pasta, only half gone for how much he’d been talking. He picked up his fork again. "Sorry, I must be boring the shite out of you. You can tell me to shut it anytime, you know. Except in class."
"No, I like it," Dom said, sitting back in the plush booth. Billy eyed him doubtfully as he forked up more of his pasta. "I do. You do it in class too. I like you like this. You’re you, and not so..."
"What?" Billy challenged him to finish that with a raised eyebrow.
Dom winced preemptively. "You’re not so... uptight," he muttered, knowing that word he’d left off could derail how well things had been going. Billy put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back himself, looking away toward the bar. "Sorry," Dom added swiftly.
"No, you’re right," Billy said, to his surprise. He shook his head, "I don’t even know how I got like this. I’ve spent eight... no, nine years slogging through uni, you know? Working my arse off, the whole way. They make it hard to get in, and hard to stay in, and I’m not even talking about the school work, either, that’s the easy bit. And it doesn’t matter if you get grants or anything else, there’s always something in your way."
Dom hesitated, "I suppose I didn’t help so much either."
Billy took that in, letting out a deep breath. "Well. It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? A couple more weeks and you’re free and clear, yeah?"
"Am I?" Dom answered, dropping his eyes to the table. "Not according to my dad. My arse is his, come June. He expects me to move back home and become his latest go-fer." He sighed, fingers tracing the checkers on the tablecloth, "I want nothing more than to tell him where he can shove it."
Billy looked him over speculatively, "Why don’t you?"
Dom took a deep breath himself. The answer to that question was probably a large part of what Billy resented him for, though honesty had got him farther than ever, here. "Because... he’ll cut me off if I don’t play according to his grand plan and be what he wants. And that scares the hell out of me."
He expected that to set Billy off, for him to say, Well, that’s what it is to be an adult, Dominic, welcome to the real world, deal with it, and throw his napkin down on the table and say he’ll get a bus back home. But he didn’t. He reached for his wine glass, pushing its stem along the pattern of checkers on the tablecloth, collecting his thoughts before he spoke.
"It’s not really that hard, you know." He gave a shrug as Dom looked back at him for explanation. "I mean, it is. It’s hard as fuck, when you’ve got loans to pay off, and classes all day, homework all night, and have to find time to work somewhere in between. But you don’t have that problem, do you?"
Dom shook his head, almost shamefully, but Billy waved that off, "You’re just that much closer to it, then, once you’ve graduated. You’ll just have to get a job, and pay for your own flat. It probably won’t be that fancy Kendall Park loft, and it probably won’t be a job you particularly like or ever dreamt of doing. But in your off-time, you make up a website, enter contests, pander to galleries, get involved with the museum. And you’re capable, Dom, you’ve got the talent, with your sketches and your photographs. You’re that good. You just have to sell it."
Dom’s heart set right off, to hear Billy tell him that. Certainly he’d been told before, by his mum, by teachers through school, even by Viggo. But to get that validation from someone like Billy, who had cause to judge him more harshly than most and still came to that conclusion-it simultaneously made him want to explode and set off his age-old fear at the same time.
"How do you know what you want, so clearly?" he asked earnestly, and Billy’s brows tightened in question for him to elaborate. "You always knew what you wanted to do, to work in museums, be a curator. You’re so focused on it, that you can’t possibly fail, like you’ve always known that’s what you’ll be doing."
"No I didn’t," Billy retorted, his smile amused. "I don't even know if I want to be a curator, or a restorer or whatever else. I just know I want to get paid to do what I love." He took up his glass and drained the rest of his wine, contemplating the piece of junk art that hung above their table for a moment. "When I was little, Mum and Dad used to take us to Kelvingrove a few times a year. It’s the best museum in Glasgow, and it’s free admission, so. Once, there was a man there... a boy really, probably a student your age at the time. He’d set up this easel, right in the middle of the museum, and was painting a perfect recreation of the Christ of Saint John of the Cross."
Dom grinned. So that was why Billy was so interested in Dalí. He knew that painting well because he’d grown up staring at the original. No wonder it figured frequently anytime Billy brought up Surrealism.
"I watched him for hours, until my mum dragged me away," Billy continued. "At home, she set me up at the kitchen table with water paints, and I tried, Dom, I tried so hard to do what that boy had done. ‘Course, I was all of eight or nine years old at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to do that unless I was some sort of prodigy, but it was so frustrating.
"I took art classes all through school. I got jobs to be able to take extra classes at the community center. I filled a hundred sketchbooks with crap, Dom, because ultimately, I just don’t have that ability, to recreate what I see in front of me, or a scene out of my head. Not the way you do."
There was a stunning longing in his voice that set Dom’s heart off again, and Billy shifted to fold his arms on the table in front of his plate. "When I first started at Glasgow University, I used to work at this bar just across from the museum, where a lot of the curators used to go after work. One of them was also a professor of mine... Dr. Innes. Old man’s probably dead now, spent half his time drunk as a lord, but he and I used to chat quite a bit over his empties. One time, I had told him about having spent so much of my childhood at that museum, and he says, ‘You want to see behind the scenes?’
"And somehow, the old bastard used his credentials to give me a tour, past all those locked doors that say ‘employees only’. He showed me the archives and how much art isn’t even on the walls, but sits in storage drawers in the basements. He let me see the restoration rooms, through the windows, of course. Watched a bloke delicately scrubbing decades worth of dust off a Degas... It was eye opening. It was something I could do. So, I changed my focus," He paused and laughed, "Little did I know how much more work I’d given myself."
Dom stared across the table, astonished at this rare insight at Billy, what made him, how he grew up. He’d never expected so much. The only thing keeping him from crawling over the table was their waitress collecting plates and asking if they’d like dessert. Billy began shaking his head no, but Dom quickly pushed the dessert menu toward him, "Go on, then, Bills. It’s not a date without pudding."
Billy grinned bashfully and conceded, pulling his glasses back out of his shirt pocket to read the small print, "Alright... the, ah... the pear panna cotta," he glanced across at Dom for approval.
Dom nodded smartly, keeping his eyes on Billy. "Two spoons. And more of this gorgeous Riesling."
The awkward silence held for the short time it took for their dessert and wine to arrive and was furthered by both of them going for the spoons at the same time, bumping hands. Billy jerked his back, but Dom grabbed for it before he got far, the very act of touching fingers tugging a nervous chuckle from them both. Letting go, Dom picked up one spoon and handed it to him, gesturing for him to have the first bite. Billy eyed him as he took the spoon and delicately broke the perfect surface of the custard, closing his eyes and unconsciously licking some of the sweet couli from his bottom lip. Dom nearly mirrored him, trying the pudding for himself and humming at the sweetness. Between them, they devoured it in minutes.
"Hundreds of sketchbooks, hm?" Dom murmured, licking the last of the sweetness off his spoon and mulling over the things Billy had said. "I’d like to see those."
Billy shook his head, leaving his spoon on the plate’s edge and sitting back with a smile, "Nooo. I doubt I even have any of them anymore. Anyway, none of them were any good."
"You are your own worst critic," Dom told him. "You’d be surprised what other people might say."
Billy’s head was still negating that. "My sister once told me one of them looked like the kids from Peanuts."
"Well that’s good, yeah?" Dom pointed, "Charles Schultz would be proud. You said everything has merit, even cartoons."
"Sure they do," Billy nodded, "But generally not when you were trying to emulate the style of Da Vinci."
Dom grinned at that, imagining it. "Well hey, Da Vinci did caricatures too. The man had a sense of humor. I’ll bet he’d think it’s fucking hilarious that some people think the Mona Lisa is supposed to be him in drag."
Billy laughed, "Do you?"
"Nah," Dom wrinkled his nose, "The man was a genius. If he wanted to draw himself in drag he’d’ve done a better job. Besides, that new copy they found makes it obvious that it’s a woman-La Gioconda."
"You saw it too, then?" Billy’s eyes lit right back up, "Under all that black lacquer was so much detail! And they think they were painted side-by-side at the same time, Da Vinci and his student Francesco Melzi. Christ, what I wouldn’t give to see them together. If the Louvre and the Prado did a joint exhibit..." He left off, looking achingly off in the middle
distance.
"Well, the original is a bit disappointing, really, even if you get through the crowds to see it up close." Dom paused, then added, "Up close being ten feet away behind a rope, and through six inches of bulletproof glass. You can barely see any detail at all."
"Aye, well, you can’t expect anything else, can you, they way that piece has been treated over the years," Billy responded, almost without thought, still distracted. He gave a wistful sigh, bringing his eyes back to Dom. "So, you’ve been to the Louvre?"
"Yeah. On holiday with my parents," Dom nodded, "It’s one of the things that got me drawing, or kept me drawing, more seriously than I had. You haven’t been?"
"No. Paris is a bit out of my price range," Billy muttered, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he sighed, "I’ve dreamt of working there for ages. Fuck, I’d push a mop there if it meant I could look at the artwork all night."
"Why can’t you?" Dom asked, "People do work there, don’t they? They probably employ more curators and historians than any museum in the world."
"I put my name in when I got into the program here," Billy said, eyes looking faraway again and then pulling back with a shrug. "But everyone does, Dominic. You put your name down at the Louvre, the Duomo, Nat and Tate, the Met. It’s part of pretending you can play with the big boys. But everyone knows you’ve got to wait for some old bastard to retire, or die. They could probably wallpaper the whole palace and the mall underneath with their applicant list."
Dom nodded; it was probably true. "Well, your name is down, then. There’s still a chance. And in the mean time you could push a mop under The Coronation of Napoleon. A painting the size of the average parisian apartment."
Billy chuckled, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses. The waitress brought over the check, which Dom took, even as Billy politely argued for it. "You need to start saving up for Paris, Bills," he grinned lowly, which snapped Billy’s mouth shut and made his eyes that much more bright.
Billy’s neighborhood was cold and quiet was they walked back along the sidewalks and through the narrow alley to the back of the house.
"So, how was it, going on a date with someone as annoying as me?" Dom asked, turning to face Billy in the small patio between the sunken stairs and the rubbish bins.
Billy scuffed his shoes on the damp concrete in the dim yellow glow of the porch light before he looked back at him,"You’re not annoying." His gaze fell down Dom’s silk tie and waistcoat, then he tilted his head in thought, "Well, yes, you are, but-"
"I’m terribly annoying, don’t lie," Dom interrupted cheekily, tilting his head the opposite direction as he took a little step closer.
"You are," Billy conceded, a nervous smile flashing across his face. He closed the small distance between them and reached out to pinch the edge of Dom’s tie between his fingers, "But... sometimes, in an endearing way."
Dom’s grin softened, heart thundering as Billy used the tie to tug him in closer, brushing their lips tentatively together. He waited to see where Billy would go with this sweet initiation, and when he seemed to falter, he brought his hands up to Billy’s cheeks, gently tipping his head up and opening to him, tasting the remnants of wine and dessert as he delicately traced his bottom lip with his tongue. Billy released a puff of an exhale, his hand slipping down the tie, catching on his waistcoat, before it stopped and curled on his belt buckle. His lips broke from Dom’s long enough to breathe, "Come inside."
Dom’s mouth stretched to grin again, "Thought you didn’t put out on the first date."
"We both know I was lying," Billy snickered before he dragged him down the steps, struggling to get the door unlocked in the cold, and tugging Dom through to press him up against it once inside. Dom giggled at Billy’s enthusiasm, letting him explore his mouth, wet and deep and messy, his fingers tightening on lapels and popping the top button of the waistcoat before gripping his tie again.
"You were right about the bloody ties," Billy laughed, struggling with how tight he’d made the knot. "All I could think of all night was getting it off you."
"And doing what with it, might I ask?" Dom asked slyly.
"Any number of kinky things, you know. Could bind you, blindfold you, tie you to the bed, if it had posts. Have my wicked way."
"It’s always the quiet ones," Dom commented, gently taking Billy’s hands from his tie and twining their fingers, "Hey, slow it down, yeah?"
"What is it with you and slowing things like this down?" he breathed with a frustrated laugh.
"We’ve got all night, don’t we?"
Billy hesitated, his brows pinching together, "I have work tomorrow. At the framers."
"That’s okay with me," Dom said quickly, not wanting to be sent away now that he’d got this far. He leaned in to kiss some more, slowly, methodically drawing a hum out of Billy’s throat before mouthing along his jaw, tasting as he spoke against his skin, "Didn’t you ever just make out? You know, as a kid? Make out for hours because you too afraid to do anything else?"
Billy smirked, "Do I look like the guy anyone made out with? My first kiss was Megan Dupree from the Ruchazie scheme. She used to steal my lunch money in exchange for not telling anyone I was from Cranhill side."
Dom giggled at how twee that was. "Not so bad then, if this Megan girl watched your back."
"She didn’t do that, she just plastered her big sloppy lips over mine and said not to tell anyone or I’d catch it. Her about the build and personality of a lorry, by the way."
"Oh, okay," Dom laughed. "Was it that bad? Wrong side of the tracks sort of thing?"
"Aye," Billy said, sliding Dom’s silky tie through his hand again, but didn’t elaborate further on it. "Bastard," he muttered, "Tell me to wear a tie and then you show up in a waistcoat." His fingers found the second button and tugged it open as Dom gave a knowing chuckle.
"I thought you’d like it."
"I do like it," Billy answered with a little shiver. "I want to take it off."
Dom pushed off the door and urged Billy back into the living room where it was slightly less drafty, "Yeah? What else do you want?" Billy’s hands pushed under the shoulders of Dom’s jacket, which he shrugged out of and tossed near the door, getting Billy out of his as well.
Billy tugged open the last two buttons of the waistcoat and moved back to the tie, "I want all this off."
Dom backed him up some more, smiling as the seat of the sofa bumped his calves and he blindly grabbed Dom’s shoulders tight to catch himself. "What else?" he whispered against his mouth.
"Fuck. I want-" Billy’s eyes squeezed shut, the heat under his jeans obvious between them as his accent went decidedly thick, "I want to fuck you."
Dom smiled, pushing him gently down on the sofa and climbing over his lap. "Okay. But later."
"Fuck," Billy spat again, hands grabbing at his beltloops. "Why?"
Licking his lips, Dom drew his fingers from Billy’s shoulders down each side of his shirt, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. One hand took up the striped tie, his thumb tracing the pattern and flicked his eyes back up to Billy’s, "You really haven’t done this before?"
Billy exhaled, more out of frustration than anything. "Gonna keep asking me that? Not unless you count the last time this happened," he laughed, his smile fading at Dom’s serious face. "Why?"
"I just..." Dom muttered with a sigh of his own. There were plenty of answers, and questions of his own beneath it, but the last thing he wanted was to be kicked out the door now for being all emotional about it. Instead of answering, he kissed him, slow and deep, until Billy sank back into the sofa cushions, questions forgotten and his hand lighting on Dom’s head to push through his hair and grip. The warmth between them radiated, pushing away the chill still clinging to them from outside. Billy gave a hungry moan, sending a thrill through him. Billy wanted this. Wanted him, had agreed to come out with him in the first place after all the arguing and conflict they’d had over the past few months. They’d already had a quick, frantic roll, but he knew that was fueled by stress and opportunity. Dom wanted it to be different this time. He wanted it to be better.
Perched over him as he was, he let Billy tug the tails of his shirt out of his jeans and push underneath. His hands were cold; Dom’s skin jumped at the shock before accepting it as they breathed in each other’s laughter. He did the same with Billy’s shirt, the bottom several of buttons falling apart as Billy’s tummy squirmed at the chill of his fingers. He tensed and then went still as Dom’s hand skated over the hardness trapped in his jeans, a teasing touch before bring his hands back to safer territory. Billy pulled Dom close, kissing messily, teeth clicking together as he grabbed his head and growled into his mouth.
"See," Dom pulled away just enough to smile, "You like making out."
Billy made another affirmative noise while Dom curled his fingers into the waist of his jeans and used the leverage to pull their groins together, making Billy’s mouth drop open on a grunt. Dom grinned, mouthing along his jaw as he wriggled in his lap, hearing his breathing go a bit haywire. His tongue scraped over stubble and then earlobe, biting and soothing with his tongue and breath.
"Fuck, Dom," Billy’s hands dragged the waistcoat down off his arms. "Come on, please..."
Dom chuckled deep in his throat, climbing off. He took Billy’s hand to haul him up, then grabbed his striped tie and turning it once around his palm like a leash to lead him around the corner into his bedroom. Billy giggled, letting Dom push him down on the bed.
Billy flopped across the pillows, looking so uncharacteristically debauched, which was a sight. Tidy-to-a-fault Billy, with his shirt coming apart and tie all askew, jeans tenting out over his hard-on. He clawed his tie apart, tossing it to the floor and pulling his glasses off, setting them on the bedside table without looking away, since Dom was slowly dragging his own tie from his collar, dropping it on the floor near Billy’s.
He quirked his lips at the glasses from where he stood at the bed’s lower corner. "Thought you needed those," he commented, biting his lip flirtily.
"I do," Billy murmured, tucked one hand behind his mussed up hair to better watch Dom undress. "Up close, for reading. Forget I’m wearing them, most of the time."
Dom rounded his eyebrows as his fingers traveled down his shirt buttons, "Old man."
"Says the wee trollop doing a striptease in my bedroom," Billy’s eyes sparked hot, eyes dropping down the length of his body like they were tumbling down a precipice. "By all means, continue."
"Is that what this is?" Dom grinned, "Don’t I need a little bom-chicka-wow-wow or something?" He gave himself a little rhythm from his pelvis for a minute, propping a knee on the corner of the bed. But instead of continuing, he left his shirt hanging open and leaned over, tugging off Billy’s shoes one at a time, and then his socks by the toes, hands smoothing over his ankles and the arches of his feet until his toes curled. He crawled up, catlike over Billy’s legs, watching his pupils dilate farther. Dropping low with a grin, he kissed the triangle of skin exposed just below Billy's belly button between the half-undone sides of shirt, hearing him suck a breath in from above. He kissed his way up, darting his tongue above his navel, tugging the remaining couple of buttons open with his teeth before he rose up and walked on his knees around him, until they were tucked neatly under Billy’s armpits.
"Can you still see without those?" he rasped, thumbing open one of the buttons on the fly of his jeans and tilting his head toward the glasses on the nightstand. "Up close and all."
"Christ, you’re so-" Billy took a shaky breath, eyes darting from Dom’s bared stomach to his nipples to the crotch directly in front of his face, "Such a fucking tease."
"Really?" Dom smiled wide, pulling his shirt the rest of the way off as Billy’s hands slid up to his hip pockets, tugging his jeans a little farther down on his hips. "I don’t think that was what you were going to say."
"No?" Billy muttered, fingers tracing the line of definition from his hip down into his denims.
"Sounded for a second like you might pay me a compliment," Dom urged him more upright, bringing Billy’s nose in close proximity to his crotch as Dom tugged one of his arms and then the other up to yank Billy’s shirt awkwardly off and prop the second pillow behind him.
"When have I ever done that?" Billy muttered distractedly, once settled back more comfortably.
Dom considered, quirking his mouth to one side before he brightened, "Outside actually, you said I was endearing. And you just called me a tease."
"You are, that’s hardly a compliment," Billy reached up, stroking one hand up and down the length of Dom’s abs, pausing where the hair thickened and darkened just below his navel. "You’ve always been a great big gorgeous tease."
Dom gasped at the word, and Billy snapped his mouth and eyes tight at the slip, covering them with a hand warm from Dom’s skin.
Sitting back on Billy’s thighs, Dom tugged the hand away from his face. "Gorgeous?" he asked in a curious whisper.
Billy blushed furiously, eyes looking anywhere but back into his own, close and imploring as they were. "I’ve always thought so," he muttered, chest rising as he sighed, "Drove me crazy, to be so hot for you, when you were having a go at me all the time."
The thrill firing through Dom had him vibrating at such an astonishing secret. It was stunning, to think Billy had thought as much, had even been looking, even with all the flack Dom gave him. It wasn’t something he’d ever expected to hear. He slid forward, kissing him sweetly, until he felt Billy relax and let his hands fall onto his skin once again. Sitting back, Dom let his fingers gently trace the contours of Billy’s face. It was fascinating to be able to do this, finally, to outline the light arch of his brows, the straight slope of his nose, and the incredible bow of his upper lip. "You are too, you know," he said, dropping that word low in his throat. "Gorgeous."
Billy snorted, "Go on, Dom. You don’t have to say so just because I did."
"I’m not," Dom insisted, "I’ve been staring at you all semester, you know," He leaned in to kiss the flat of Billy’s cheek, and smiled. "I’ve got sketchbooks full of your face to prove it."
"Bullshit," Billy laughed.
"I’ll show you sometime," Dom promised.
"You’ve got sketchbooks full of Bloom’s arse too. I don’t even want to know what you’ve done with Elijah."
Dom chuckled, "Lij has never let me do anything beyond take his picture. And he gets pissy if any of them come off as remotely twinky. Doesn’t think he actually is, it must be something I’ve done."
"What’s up with him?" Billy huffed an breath, "He’s always such a prick."
Dom hummed, sliding down to lie on top of him as he considered how to answer. "He’s just... been on the defensive all his life, I guess. The way his dad expects him to be, all balls and machismo, when he’s actually just really sweet and harmless." He nudged the round of his nose into Billy’s cheek. "So have you, eh?"
"I suppose," Billy exhaled heavily, "‘S what happens when people make a point to harass and annoy someone for no reason. You’re annoying me right now."
"Am I?" Dom lifted up a little at that.
"Yeah," Billy pushing his hips up against Dom’s to illustrate, "Is it later yet?"
Dom laughed lowly, pressing his own hips down just to see Billy’s eyes roll back as they dropped closed. "Did I say something about later?"
"You said I could fuck you later," Billy insisted, pushing his fingers against the muscles in Dom’s back, "I remember."
"And here I thought you appreciated me for my wit."
Billy boldly reached down and tugged Dom’s pelvis as close as possible, "Your wit’s been tormenting me almost as much as your arse." His hands squeezed, as if realizing what they’d just come upon, thumbs stroking over the denim seam down the middle. "Why are there still clothes?"
Dom laughed and kissed Billy hard, sweeping through his mouth and grinding their hips together with the nearly painful scrape of denim before he pulled himself fully free, Billy’s strong arms reluctant to let go. He undid Billy’s belt first, tugging his fly open as Billy helpfully shoved his jeans down and kicked them unceremoniously off. Dom raised his eyebrows as he inched Billy’s boxers down. "Did a little manscaping, did we?" he asked, throwing the clothes off the bed.
"Shut it," Billy went pink as Dom pulled them the rest of the way down and off, "Found the attachment thing to my shaver. Thought about doing my chest too."
Dom gasped, putting his hands over Billy’s little pink nipples protectively, "Don’t you dare."
"No?"
"No way," he ran his hand through it, still surprised by how much he liked the chest hair. Petting that hand down to his crotch, he pulled his fingers through the neatened but not naked trimming down there, the way he did himself. The very idea that Billy had done it because someone-Dom-was actually looking now was both amusing and surprisingly sweet. He gave Billy a little smile, "I like this, though."
He ran into the problem of trying to kick off his own shoes while simultaneously taking Billy’s hard, red cock in hand and thumbing open his own fly, which mostly just made him lose his balance. Billy smirked, palming himself while Dom sat back with a shrug and tugged his shoes and socks off. He took the strip of condoms and tube of lube out of his pocket, tossing them on the bedspread before he peeled the his fly apart and shucked the jeans down and to the floor, but Billy’s eyes had followed the accessories, tentatively turning the tube over on the blankets, another small reminder of his inexperience.
Lying back alongside him, Dom searched his face. "What’re you thinking?" he asked. He doubted there was fear behind it, but clearly there was something going on behind his eyes.
Billy just shook his head, dropping the lube in the narrow space between them and turning on his side toward him. His hand traced Dom’s collarbone, slipped down to brush over the dark red disk of his nipple, making him bite his lip. Given that, he pushed Dom over on his back, crawling up over him to tip down and taste the little hardened nub of it, and the other.
Dom sprawled, letting Billy explore, watching while he traced the shapes of his body with his fingers and then with his lips and tongue, mapping his shoulders, stomach, thighs, and pelvis until Dom was breathing quite hard. He felt like one of Billy’s pieces of museum art whose details he paid so much loving attention. He rumbled a laugh to himself.
"What are you giggling at now?" Billy murmured from down near his groin, his cock bobbing hopefully off his stomach at the proximity.
"I was just wondering if you’d do this to the statue of David, given the chance."
Billy snickered. "Not likely. He’s a big bloke, you know, seventeen feet tall. Kind of intimidating. Also hard to tip over."
"But hard as a rock all the time," Dom quipped, and his erection leapt illustratively as Billy erupted another laugh against his hip, then crawled back up to his face. "Are you always this chatty in bed?"
Dom pursed his lips. "Not always," he reached down, getting both Billy and himself in one hand and stroking lightly, watching Billy’s eyelids and his jaw go lax. Rolling him to his back again, he found the condoms and lube between folds of the quilt, squirting a little of it in his hand and letting it lightly coat Billy’s cock as he gave it a lazy tug. The rest he rubbed over his own, enjoying the warmth and ease of it over his skin before he ripped a condom from the strip and tore it open with his teeth, tossing the rest onto the nightstand. Rolling it down on Billy, he found the lube again to coat his fingers and reached behind himself.
It had actually been quite awhile since he’d been laid, having been pursuing Billy in the last few months. Not that he didn’t wank plenty, but he hadn’t bottomed in a while either, probably not since last year. He tipped back down to Billy’s mouth, tongues twisting messily as he tried and failed to multitask. It wasn’t long before Billy’s hand was following his arm back to what he was doing.
Dom lifted his upper leg helpfully, murmuring, "Go this way." Billy grabbed for the tube between them to slick his own fingers and reached between his legs, slipping back behind his balls. Dom hissed as Billy’s index pushed inside, between his own two fingers from the back.
"Does it hurt?" Billy asked.
Dom shook his head, taking a deep breath as his forehead bumped and then braced against Billy’s. "Feels good," he whispered, his own breathing go deep and heavy again as his body opened up and warmth fired through him. He withdrew his own fingers, letting Billy take over that entirely and reached down to stroke Billy’s prick again. "You’ve never done this? To yourself?"
"A little," Billy confessed, tipping his hips up into Dom’s grip while still pushing his narrow little fingers-two now-in and back out, quite gently, his wrist rubbing the underside of Dom’s balls with each movement. "Didn’t spend that much time on it, really. It did hurt."
"Silly Billy," Dom breathed a laugh. "It hurts the first few times, I won’t lie. Or if your top is just huge and not careful about it. It’s just really intense until you get use to it. But then it’s the best thing, Bills. I come so hard from it."
"Fuck," Billy groaned, pulling his fingers out to bring Dom closer, "I want that, want to make you come."
"Yeah," Dom lifted up, straddling him and squirted a generous amount of lube into his hand to slick Billy. He kneed farther up, reaching back to guide Billy’s cock to his arsehole, watching him shudder as he bore down on it, felt him slide slowly in. Billy’s hands shakily grabbed for his hips, legs squirming on the blankets as he locked eyes with Dom above him, mouth dropping open.
Dom smiled down at him, stopping his descent halfway and lifting slowly back up, "Good?"
"Fuck yeah," Billy gasped, and as Dom pressed down again, he got his heels braced and thrust up, getting himself fully seated inside with a surprised noise. Dom groaned, lifting up as Billy pulled back and did it again, and again. His attempts were erratic, over-enthusiastically trying to set a pace faster than Dom’s and getting dislodged. His eyes popped open at such sudden lack of sensation and looked so distraught that Dom giggled.
"Easy, Bills," he said, guiding Billy back in again before he reached back with both hands, one on each of Billy’s thighs to both hold them down and brace himself. Arching his back, he used his thigh muscles to rise and fall with some more momentum, moaning at how Billy’s cock plumbed right up against his prostate. He heard a string of filth come from Billy’s mouth and felt his fingers dig into his thighs. "Like that?" he gasped.
"Fucking hell, your arse is fucking magic," Billy’s voice stuttered, wild and unsteady.
Laughing, Dom sat back up straight, lifting up onto his feet to get the leverage to bounce right on him, "Your cock’s pretty fucking amazing too," he breathed between grunts. The expression on Billy’s face was absolute awe, his eyes completely dazed and beautiful mouth open, releasing sounds in time to the rhythm of their fucking. His cheeks were so pink the freckles there stood out, and Dom couldn’t help but lean closer to brush them with kisses. Billy whimpered, turning to find and seize his mouth with his own.
Suddenly Billy heaved them both up, gathering Dom in a tangle of arms and legs in that astonishing strength till they were both sitting upright, Dom still cradled in his lap and wriggling. Without pulling out, he tipped Dom between his thighs to his back, lifting his hips to get his own legs under him and pull Dom’s pelvis more securely back into his own, driving his cock back in deeply with a growl.
Dom laughed, pulling his knees back and bracing his bare feet against the bulging muscles of Billy’s arm and shoulder. He’d been manhandled plenty, but usually by guys considerably bigger than himself. Having Billy do it was easily one of the hotter things he’d experienced. He watched Billy sliding a hand down the inside of his thigh and try to reestablish a pace from this new position. "I see how it is," he murmured, low and sexy, licking his lips, "Wanna be in charge, Mr. Boyd?"
Billy breathed a laugh, sinking in deep and getting a groan out of Dom for it. He pulled back, all the way out, having to grip himself at the base to push back in, a curse falling out of his mouth. He did it again, letting just the head of his cock push in and back out.
Dom let his head drop back and breathed, knowing exactly what Billy was doing as he watched with hooded eyes. "Feels fantastic, doesn’t it, my arse right round your cockhead, yeah?" Dom deliberately tightened up his pelvic muscles, and grinned as Billy’s face scrunched up in complete ecstasy. "Gotcha."
"Fuck, that... fucking mouth of yours," Billy gritted out.
"Could do that too," Dom licked his lips messily again, making Billy growl and drop down to kiss him, hard and searing as his hips worked in circles, hitting a pace and drive that tipped a delicate balance, making Dom gasp with every stroke at the white hot pleasure of it. "Christ, Billy, yeah."
The sheer sound of Billy grunting in his ear and fucking him deep as he had him folded in half with his head nearly hanging off the back of the mattress shot Dom’s self control all to hell. He’d imagined this, fantasized about it, what Billy would sound like, how he’d feel, whether he’d be nervous and too careful. But the reality was that Billy was hard and strong above him, inside him, fucking him with a instinctual carnal need that pushed every button Dom needed him to.
"Oh god. Oh fuck, Billy, yeah," the words started tumbling out between moans and gasps. "Fuck me. Harder. Hard as you want."
"Christ," Billy breathed and did, bracing his arms on the bed, his hips slapping up against the backs of Dom’s thighs, his rhythm going completely primal. It gave Dom room to grab his cock, ratcheting up the tension swirling around and starting to collect in his balls. Above him, Billy’s pumping made the moans and breaths from his throat interrupted, an almost-vibrato of song, his skin shiny with sweat, muscles that were always hidden under clothes tight and working hard. Dom jerked his hand up and down his prick, the other reaching down and below to feel where they were connected, to feel Billy’s cock pounding into him.
"You’re so fucking sexy, Billy," he breathed, right before his stomach and arse and balls clenched and he came with a whimper, a string of white shooting across his own chest and the rest oozing onto his belly.
"Oh fuck, Dom," Billy gasped, shoving deep into him, a strong telltale tremble going through him as Billy’s voice went abruptly high and full of desperate release.
Their breathing heaved together, Billy still firmly planted inside him as they searched for air. When Billy’s eyes opened and found his, the first thing he did was push an arm under Dom’s shoulder and scoot them both back a little bit, enough to get the mattress back under Dom’s head. "Sorry," he murmured, and gave an enormous exhale, palming one side of Dom’s face and dropping his face into the crook of his neck.
Dom hummed, petting one hand up and down Billy’s back, enjoying the puffs of his hot breath and his comforting weight pressing him down. It was far too soon when Billy apologized again, "Sorry, don’t mean to squash you."
"No... you’re not heavy," Dom insisted, but he’d already lifted off, breath hissing through his teeth as he slowly pulled out. He scrunched his face in disgust, plucking at the condom’s edge and then at the filled tip, before he laughed and probably would’ve blushed if his face wasn’t already red with exertion. "How do I get this thing off?"
Dom chuckled, sitting up to gently slip it off Billy’s softening prick with as little fuss as possible. He tied it, dropping it off the edge of the bed and noting where it landed so he could pick it up later. He pushed Billy back up toward the pillows and lay half on top of him, getting a thigh between his legs and tugging the half of the quilt they weren’t laying on around the pair of them as Billy gave a shiver at the chill air penetrating his sweaty, cooling skin.
"So was it good for you?" Dom joked, pulling a laugh from Billy immediately at the cliché.
"Fuck yes," he giggled, his breath still evening out, but his body loosening to the fully sated sprawl of a good lay. "Was it good for you?" he aimed to kid back, apple green eyes flicking to find his when Dom didn’t answer. He smiled, asking again in a shy whisper, "Was it?"
Dom stretched up, nuzzling against his nose and cheek softly, giving him a genuine answer in a low voice, "Fuck yes," before he kissed his lips and his chin and neck. "Was very, very good."
Billy inhaled deeply, relaxing further, his fingers plucking at the bedspread, belatedly laughing. "Shite, now I have to do laundry again."
Dom lazily necked him, basking in the warmth and smell of the pair of them. "Later. Tomorrow. Sheets are still clean."
Billy rumbled a laugh that shook them both. "So you’re sleeping here, eh? Settling right in?" He teased, and Dom leveled a sparkling, hopeful gaze at him and kissed his mouth again. "I have work tomorrow, Dom," Billy reminded, sighing as he caressed Dom’s back under the blanket. "Which means I’ve got to shower. I smell."
"You smell like me," Dom rumbled with a grin, nipping his chin.
Aye," Billy poked him in the chest, that was still decorated with a sticky streak of his own come, "Filthy bastard. Not a good aroma for framing people’s pretty photos." He punctuated that with another poke.
Dom grumbled, inhaling their combined scent on Billy’s skin once more before he sat up, tugging Billy with him. "Fine, fine. Come on, you."
He frogmarched Billy to the bathroom, both giggling as Dom eyed and then palmed Billy’s little arse on the way. Billy flipped on the tap, turning awkwardly back to Dom, still standing naked in the tiny loo. "It takes a minute or two to warm up." He scratched his head, darting his eyes out the door, "I’ve, ah, only got the one big towel."
Dom shrugged, biting his lip at Billy’s sudden return to nerves in the too-bright light. Once the water started to steam and Dom followed him into the little stand-up shower, tugging the curtain around them, Billy seemed even more unsure.
Grinning, Dom found the shampoo on a wire rack hanging from the shower head, and set to lathering Billy’s hair while he tentatively touched his chest again.
"Do all your dates end like this, then?" Billy asked. "Showers and sleepovers?"
"Dunno," Dom quipped, smiling as he dipped in close to kiss Billy’s nose, and then his mouth, wiping foam from his forehead to keep it from running in his eyes. "It’s my first date."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-NC17
Warnings: AU, angst, art geekery
Summary: Uni fic.
A/N: Sorry for the wait. Actually, I think I did pretty good considering I lost all of this exactly a month ago. Luckily I remembered a lot and it lit a fire under my ass to finish it.
Dom strode up to the old brick Victorian, checking his tie and buttoning his jacket. The weather had finally granted the city a reprieve, sunny enough during the day to melt most of the remaining snow, but the evening was still crisply cold when the light fell. He gave a little shiver as he descended the sunken concrete steps and knocked.
A few moments ticked by before Billy threw open the door, his eyes tripping down Dom’s shiny silk tie and waistcoat under his jacket, looking distraught. "Shite. Dom, I’m not going to be dressed properly for wherever we’re going. I look like a four pound wino compared to you!"
He looked nothing of the sort, actually, wearing the denims Dom had liked from before with a light blue shirt, a quirky striped tie and a charcoal suit jacket he hadn’t seen. Still, Billy’s hands tugged at his clothes, backing away from the threshold toward his bedroom. "I’ll change to trousers. Change this awful tie too, Maggie gave it to me for a birthday and it doesn’t fucking go with anything-"
Dom shut the door and caught him by an arm, turning him back around to fix the tie he was attempting to shred. "I think you look fine."
Billy stared back doubtfully. "You’re just saying that. How do you pull off jeans with a jacket and tie like that, but when I try it, I just look like a complete arse?"
"Looks to me like you’re pulling it off," Dom reassured, turning him loose again. "You look like a beatnik art professor. Not too far off the map for you, really."
"Is it alright?" he asked, still concerned, "For wherever we’re going? Where are we going?"
"It’s fine, Bills," Dom repeated, intent on keeping their destination a secret. "They’re not all that tight-arsed about what you wear anyway. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve probably been there before, so if they let the likes of us in once, they’ll do it again, eh? You look good." He deliberately let his eyes linger, taking Billy in and hoping those words resonated from the last time he’d said them.
Billy continued to fidget, shrugging against the somewhat snug fit in the shoulder of his jacket, tugging at his collar and the lay of the tie, scrubbing a hand up through his hair before wildly trying to flatten it back down again. Pocketing his own hands, Dom simply watched his discomfort with a wry smile. When Billy finally noticed, he blurted a nervous laugh. "This is weird, Dom," he said anxiously, "I just... don’t really know how to approach this."
Dom grinned, nodding in complete agreement. The two of them, going on a date of all things. It was weird. He jingled his keys in his pocket, then pulled them out. Better get them going before Billy changed his mind entirely. "Should we-?"
"Aye, I suppose we should," Billy answered swiftly, grabbing for his own keys to lock up behind them.
They sat in silence as Dom drove, and even with the music turned low between them it felt similar to all the drives to Billy’s job; little in the way of conversation, with Billy staring out the passenger’s window and chewing at his thumbnail. As they came to the bridge, he turned sharply to Dom. "You’re not taking me to Morton’s are you?"
Dom did a double-take at him, being sure to look a bit wide-eyed and guilty until Billy’s expression tilted a little more toward mortifying horror. Then he grinned and said, "‘Course not." Billy exhaled with relief as he continued, "I figured we’d eat later." He glanced over doubtfully, "Unless, you hungry now? I can change the reservation..."
"No, no," Billy replied quickly, waving him off, "I mean, if you made one, don’t change it. ‘S a big hassle."
"Good. I didn’t make one," Dom flashed him another wide grin. A couple of weighted seconds passed as Dom drove, feeling Billy’s hard eyes trying to parse him out, tiring already of the tricks and jokes. He reached across the console to squeeze Billy’s knee. "Relax, Bills, I’m just trying to make you laugh. You’re making me nervous."
"You’re nervous?" Billy asked incredulously.
"Yeah, I’m nervous," Dom nodded, shrugging at his own honesty. "I don’t really do this sort of thing either, you know?"
They fell silent again as he kept driving. It was the truth; of all the relationships he’d had over the years, none of them had involved this, wining and dining a person to get to know him, to strengthen bonds, as a means to an end. Or a beginning. Dom wasn’t even sure he’d ever had what most people construed as a real relationship. He’d had mates, friends with benefits, one night stands, and crushes that never amounted to anything, but never anything truly resembling what he was tentatively beginning to fantasize about getting out of this. This whole thing with Billy was unknown territory entirely; frightening and exciting all at once.
As he finally turned on the street to their destination, he heard Billy give a low laugh of recognition and smiled himself as they passed the front of the Boston Museum of Fine Art and drove around into its car park. "See? I told you you’d been here before."
"Yeah," Billy answered as they got out of the car and he looked up at the façade with all the familiarity of an old friend. "It’s been a long time though. A year, at least."
"Really?" Dom questioned, "I’d have thought you’d be camped out here every weekend."
"I haven’t had that kind of time in ages," Billy muttered wistfully.
Dom paid the admission for both of them and opened up a pamphlet listing all of the permanent and visiting exhibitions. "Anything you really want to see?" he asked, very aware of Billy hovering close to read over his shoulder, "The Renaissance halls, of course."
Billy’s hand came over his arm to jab at the pamphlet excitedly, "Ooh, they’ve got a Manet exhibition! And Neo-Classics and Romanticism!"
Dom grinned, "Alright. And I want to see this: Early British Photographers. And this: Sketches in Bohemian Paris. Good?"
Billy smiled back at him, a real, wide smile, bright-eyed as he nearly bounded over to the map on the wall to locate the rooms where their choices were housed. Dom bit his lip and followed. This was exactly why he’d brought him here.
Two hours later, after they’d been not-so-delicately urged to exit as the museum was closing for the night, Dom had them tucked into a booth at a quiet little bistro, and Billy was still going on about the art they’d seen.
"...and then with the Industrial Revolution, everything changed, and the Romantics-who were all about the beauty and emotion of the natural world-were just left completely by the wayside."
Dom leaned chin-on-hand, watching the way Billy’s neat hands gestured as he spoke across the table, the nuances of his expressions. He enjoyed all of it, from the glimmers he’d seen in class to the way Billy had lead him around the museum and spoken at length about his favorite pieces, obscure details about their origins and the artists, his voice rich and melodic in the big echoing rooms. This was how Billy truly came to life, talking about what he loved to someone who would give him an audience.
"It’s devastating to think about, you know. Friedrich was so well respected and successful early in his career, but then he died a recluse, completely forgotten. And then years later his work had become popular again, but with the ideals of the wrong side of the Second World War, so even in his death he was shunned for decades. Most people nowadays have never even heard of him." Billy glanced down at his plate of pasta, only half gone for how much he’d been talking. He picked up his fork again. "Sorry, I must be boring the shite out of you. You can tell me to shut it anytime, you know. Except in class."
"No, I like it," Dom said, sitting back in the plush booth. Billy eyed him doubtfully as he forked up more of his pasta. "I do. You do it in class too. I like you like this. You’re you, and not so..."
"What?" Billy challenged him to finish that with a raised eyebrow.
Dom winced preemptively. "You’re not so... uptight," he muttered, knowing that word he’d left off could derail how well things had been going. Billy put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back himself, looking away toward the bar. "Sorry," Dom added swiftly.
"No, you’re right," Billy said, to his surprise. He shook his head, "I don’t even know how I got like this. I’ve spent eight... no, nine years slogging through uni, you know? Working my arse off, the whole way. They make it hard to get in, and hard to stay in, and I’m not even talking about the school work, either, that’s the easy bit. And it doesn’t matter if you get grants or anything else, there’s always something in your way."
Dom hesitated, "I suppose I didn’t help so much either."
Billy took that in, letting out a deep breath. "Well. It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? A couple more weeks and you’re free and clear, yeah?"
"Am I?" Dom answered, dropping his eyes to the table. "Not according to my dad. My arse is his, come June. He expects me to move back home and become his latest go-fer." He sighed, fingers tracing the checkers on the tablecloth, "I want nothing more than to tell him where he can shove it."
Billy looked him over speculatively, "Why don’t you?"
Dom took a deep breath himself. The answer to that question was probably a large part of what Billy resented him for, though honesty had got him farther than ever, here. "Because... he’ll cut me off if I don’t play according to his grand plan and be what he wants. And that scares the hell out of me."
He expected that to set Billy off, for him to say, Well, that’s what it is to be an adult, Dominic, welcome to the real world, deal with it, and throw his napkin down on the table and say he’ll get a bus back home. But he didn’t. He reached for his wine glass, pushing its stem along the pattern of checkers on the tablecloth, collecting his thoughts before he spoke.
"It’s not really that hard, you know." He gave a shrug as Dom looked back at him for explanation. "I mean, it is. It’s hard as fuck, when you’ve got loans to pay off, and classes all day, homework all night, and have to find time to work somewhere in between. But you don’t have that problem, do you?"
Dom shook his head, almost shamefully, but Billy waved that off, "You’re just that much closer to it, then, once you’ve graduated. You’ll just have to get a job, and pay for your own flat. It probably won’t be that fancy Kendall Park loft, and it probably won’t be a job you particularly like or ever dreamt of doing. But in your off-time, you make up a website, enter contests, pander to galleries, get involved with the museum. And you’re capable, Dom, you’ve got the talent, with your sketches and your photographs. You’re that good. You just have to sell it."
Dom’s heart set right off, to hear Billy tell him that. Certainly he’d been told before, by his mum, by teachers through school, even by Viggo. But to get that validation from someone like Billy, who had cause to judge him more harshly than most and still came to that conclusion-it simultaneously made him want to explode and set off his age-old fear at the same time.
"How do you know what you want, so clearly?" he asked earnestly, and Billy’s brows tightened in question for him to elaborate. "You always knew what you wanted to do, to work in museums, be a curator. You’re so focused on it, that you can’t possibly fail, like you’ve always known that’s what you’ll be doing."
"No I didn’t," Billy retorted, his smile amused. "I don't even know if I want to be a curator, or a restorer or whatever else. I just know I want to get paid to do what I love." He took up his glass and drained the rest of his wine, contemplating the piece of junk art that hung above their table for a moment. "When I was little, Mum and Dad used to take us to Kelvingrove a few times a year. It’s the best museum in Glasgow, and it’s free admission, so. Once, there was a man there... a boy really, probably a student your age at the time. He’d set up this easel, right in the middle of the museum, and was painting a perfect recreation of the Christ of Saint John of the Cross."
Dom grinned. So that was why Billy was so interested in Dalí. He knew that painting well because he’d grown up staring at the original. No wonder it figured frequently anytime Billy brought up Surrealism.
"I watched him for hours, until my mum dragged me away," Billy continued. "At home, she set me up at the kitchen table with water paints, and I tried, Dom, I tried so hard to do what that boy had done. ‘Course, I was all of eight or nine years old at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to do that unless I was some sort of prodigy, but it was so frustrating.
"I took art classes all through school. I got jobs to be able to take extra classes at the community center. I filled a hundred sketchbooks with crap, Dom, because ultimately, I just don’t have that ability, to recreate what I see in front of me, or a scene out of my head. Not the way you do."
There was a stunning longing in his voice that set Dom’s heart off again, and Billy shifted to fold his arms on the table in front of his plate. "When I first started at Glasgow University, I used to work at this bar just across from the museum, where a lot of the curators used to go after work. One of them was also a professor of mine... Dr. Innes. Old man’s probably dead now, spent half his time drunk as a lord, but he and I used to chat quite a bit over his empties. One time, I had told him about having spent so much of my childhood at that museum, and he says, ‘You want to see behind the scenes?’
"And somehow, the old bastard used his credentials to give me a tour, past all those locked doors that say ‘employees only’. He showed me the archives and how much art isn’t even on the walls, but sits in storage drawers in the basements. He let me see the restoration rooms, through the windows, of course. Watched a bloke delicately scrubbing decades worth of dust off a Degas... It was eye opening. It was something I could do. So, I changed my focus," He paused and laughed, "Little did I know how much more work I’d given myself."
Dom stared across the table, astonished at this rare insight at Billy, what made him, how he grew up. He’d never expected so much. The only thing keeping him from crawling over the table was their waitress collecting plates and asking if they’d like dessert. Billy began shaking his head no, but Dom quickly pushed the dessert menu toward him, "Go on, then, Bills. It’s not a date without pudding."
Billy grinned bashfully and conceded, pulling his glasses back out of his shirt pocket to read the small print, "Alright... the, ah... the pear panna cotta," he glanced across at Dom for approval.
Dom nodded smartly, keeping his eyes on Billy. "Two spoons. And more of this gorgeous Riesling."
The awkward silence held for the short time it took for their dessert and wine to arrive and was furthered by both of them going for the spoons at the same time, bumping hands. Billy jerked his back, but Dom grabbed for it before he got far, the very act of touching fingers tugging a nervous chuckle from them both. Letting go, Dom picked up one spoon and handed it to him, gesturing for him to have the first bite. Billy eyed him as he took the spoon and delicately broke the perfect surface of the custard, closing his eyes and unconsciously licking some of the sweet couli from his bottom lip. Dom nearly mirrored him, trying the pudding for himself and humming at the sweetness. Between them, they devoured it in minutes.
"Hundreds of sketchbooks, hm?" Dom murmured, licking the last of the sweetness off his spoon and mulling over the things Billy had said. "I’d like to see those."
Billy shook his head, leaving his spoon on the plate’s edge and sitting back with a smile, "Nooo. I doubt I even have any of them anymore. Anyway, none of them were any good."
"You are your own worst critic," Dom told him. "You’d be surprised what other people might say."
Billy’s head was still negating that. "My sister once told me one of them looked like the kids from Peanuts."
"Well that’s good, yeah?" Dom pointed, "Charles Schultz would be proud. You said everything has merit, even cartoons."
"Sure they do," Billy nodded, "But generally not when you were trying to emulate the style of Da Vinci."
Dom grinned at that, imagining it. "Well hey, Da Vinci did caricatures too. The man had a sense of humor. I’ll bet he’d think it’s fucking hilarious that some people think the Mona Lisa is supposed to be him in drag."
Billy laughed, "Do you?"
"Nah," Dom wrinkled his nose, "The man was a genius. If he wanted to draw himself in drag he’d’ve done a better job. Besides, that new copy they found makes it obvious that it’s a woman-La Gioconda."
"You saw it too, then?" Billy’s eyes lit right back up, "Under all that black lacquer was so much detail! And they think they were painted side-by-side at the same time, Da Vinci and his student Francesco Melzi. Christ, what I wouldn’t give to see them together. If the Louvre and the Prado did a joint exhibit..." He left off, looking achingly off in the middle
distance.
"Well, the original is a bit disappointing, really, even if you get through the crowds to see it up close." Dom paused, then added, "Up close being ten feet away behind a rope, and through six inches of bulletproof glass. You can barely see any detail at all."
"Aye, well, you can’t expect anything else, can you, they way that piece has been treated over the years," Billy responded, almost without thought, still distracted. He gave a wistful sigh, bringing his eyes back to Dom. "So, you’ve been to the Louvre?"
"Yeah. On holiday with my parents," Dom nodded, "It’s one of the things that got me drawing, or kept me drawing, more seriously than I had. You haven’t been?"
"No. Paris is a bit out of my price range," Billy muttered, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he sighed, "I’ve dreamt of working there for ages. Fuck, I’d push a mop there if it meant I could look at the artwork all night."
"Why can’t you?" Dom asked, "People do work there, don’t they? They probably employ more curators and historians than any museum in the world."
"I put my name in when I got into the program here," Billy said, eyes looking faraway again and then pulling back with a shrug. "But everyone does, Dominic. You put your name down at the Louvre, the Duomo, Nat and Tate, the Met. It’s part of pretending you can play with the big boys. But everyone knows you’ve got to wait for some old bastard to retire, or die. They could probably wallpaper the whole palace and the mall underneath with their applicant list."
Dom nodded; it was probably true. "Well, your name is down, then. There’s still a chance. And in the mean time you could push a mop under The Coronation of Napoleon. A painting the size of the average parisian apartment."
Billy chuckled, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses. The waitress brought over the check, which Dom took, even as Billy politely argued for it. "You need to start saving up for Paris, Bills," he grinned lowly, which snapped Billy’s mouth shut and made his eyes that much more bright.
Billy’s neighborhood was cold and quiet was they walked back along the sidewalks and through the narrow alley to the back of the house.
"So, how was it, going on a date with someone as annoying as me?" Dom asked, turning to face Billy in the small patio between the sunken stairs and the rubbish bins.
Billy scuffed his shoes on the damp concrete in the dim yellow glow of the porch light before he looked back at him,"You’re not annoying." His gaze fell down Dom’s silk tie and waistcoat, then he tilted his head in thought, "Well, yes, you are, but-"
"I’m terribly annoying, don’t lie," Dom interrupted cheekily, tilting his head the opposite direction as he took a little step closer.
"You are," Billy conceded, a nervous smile flashing across his face. He closed the small distance between them and reached out to pinch the edge of Dom’s tie between his fingers, "But... sometimes, in an endearing way."
Dom’s grin softened, heart thundering as Billy used the tie to tug him in closer, brushing their lips tentatively together. He waited to see where Billy would go with this sweet initiation, and when he seemed to falter, he brought his hands up to Billy’s cheeks, gently tipping his head up and opening to him, tasting the remnants of wine and dessert as he delicately traced his bottom lip with his tongue. Billy released a puff of an exhale, his hand slipping down the tie, catching on his waistcoat, before it stopped and curled on his belt buckle. His lips broke from Dom’s long enough to breathe, "Come inside."
Dom’s mouth stretched to grin again, "Thought you didn’t put out on the first date."
"We both know I was lying," Billy snickered before he dragged him down the steps, struggling to get the door unlocked in the cold, and tugging Dom through to press him up against it once inside. Dom giggled at Billy’s enthusiasm, letting him explore his mouth, wet and deep and messy, his fingers tightening on lapels and popping the top button of the waistcoat before gripping his tie again.
"You were right about the bloody ties," Billy laughed, struggling with how tight he’d made the knot. "All I could think of all night was getting it off you."
"And doing what with it, might I ask?" Dom asked slyly.
"Any number of kinky things, you know. Could bind you, blindfold you, tie you to the bed, if it had posts. Have my wicked way."
"It’s always the quiet ones," Dom commented, gently taking Billy’s hands from his tie and twining their fingers, "Hey, slow it down, yeah?"
"What is it with you and slowing things like this down?" he breathed with a frustrated laugh.
"We’ve got all night, don’t we?"
Billy hesitated, his brows pinching together, "I have work tomorrow. At the framers."
"That’s okay with me," Dom said quickly, not wanting to be sent away now that he’d got this far. He leaned in to kiss some more, slowly, methodically drawing a hum out of Billy’s throat before mouthing along his jaw, tasting as he spoke against his skin, "Didn’t you ever just make out? You know, as a kid? Make out for hours because you too afraid to do anything else?"
Billy smirked, "Do I look like the guy anyone made out with? My first kiss was Megan Dupree from the Ruchazie scheme. She used to steal my lunch money in exchange for not telling anyone I was from Cranhill side."
Dom giggled at how twee that was. "Not so bad then, if this Megan girl watched your back."
"She didn’t do that, she just plastered her big sloppy lips over mine and said not to tell anyone or I’d catch it. Her about the build and personality of a lorry, by the way."
"Oh, okay," Dom laughed. "Was it that bad? Wrong side of the tracks sort of thing?"
"Aye," Billy said, sliding Dom’s silky tie through his hand again, but didn’t elaborate further on it. "Bastard," he muttered, "Tell me to wear a tie and then you show up in a waistcoat." His fingers found the second button and tugged it open as Dom gave a knowing chuckle.
"I thought you’d like it."
"I do like it," Billy answered with a little shiver. "I want to take it off."
Dom pushed off the door and urged Billy back into the living room where it was slightly less drafty, "Yeah? What else do you want?" Billy’s hands pushed under the shoulders of Dom’s jacket, which he shrugged out of and tossed near the door, getting Billy out of his as well.
Billy tugged open the last two buttons of the waistcoat and moved back to the tie, "I want all this off."
Dom backed him up some more, smiling as the seat of the sofa bumped his calves and he blindly grabbed Dom’s shoulders tight to catch himself. "What else?" he whispered against his mouth.
"Fuck. I want-" Billy’s eyes squeezed shut, the heat under his jeans obvious between them as his accent went decidedly thick, "I want to fuck you."
Dom smiled, pushing him gently down on the sofa and climbing over his lap. "Okay. But later."
"Fuck," Billy spat again, hands grabbing at his beltloops. "Why?"
Licking his lips, Dom drew his fingers from Billy’s shoulders down each side of his shirt, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. One hand took up the striped tie, his thumb tracing the pattern and flicked his eyes back up to Billy’s, "You really haven’t done this before?"
Billy exhaled, more out of frustration than anything. "Gonna keep asking me that? Not unless you count the last time this happened," he laughed, his smile fading at Dom’s serious face. "Why?"
"I just..." Dom muttered with a sigh of his own. There were plenty of answers, and questions of his own beneath it, but the last thing he wanted was to be kicked out the door now for being all emotional about it. Instead of answering, he kissed him, slow and deep, until Billy sank back into the sofa cushions, questions forgotten and his hand lighting on Dom’s head to push through his hair and grip. The warmth between them radiated, pushing away the chill still clinging to them from outside. Billy gave a hungry moan, sending a thrill through him. Billy wanted this. Wanted him, had agreed to come out with him in the first place after all the arguing and conflict they’d had over the past few months. They’d already had a quick, frantic roll, but he knew that was fueled by stress and opportunity. Dom wanted it to be different this time. He wanted it to be better.
Perched over him as he was, he let Billy tug the tails of his shirt out of his jeans and push underneath. His hands were cold; Dom’s skin jumped at the shock before accepting it as they breathed in each other’s laughter. He did the same with Billy’s shirt, the bottom several of buttons falling apart as Billy’s tummy squirmed at the chill of his fingers. He tensed and then went still as Dom’s hand skated over the hardness trapped in his jeans, a teasing touch before bring his hands back to safer territory. Billy pulled Dom close, kissing messily, teeth clicking together as he grabbed his head and growled into his mouth.
"See," Dom pulled away just enough to smile, "You like making out."
Billy made another affirmative noise while Dom curled his fingers into the waist of his jeans and used the leverage to pull their groins together, making Billy’s mouth drop open on a grunt. Dom grinned, mouthing along his jaw as he wriggled in his lap, hearing his breathing go a bit haywire. His tongue scraped over stubble and then earlobe, biting and soothing with his tongue and breath.
"Fuck, Dom," Billy’s hands dragged the waistcoat down off his arms. "Come on, please..."
Dom chuckled deep in his throat, climbing off. He took Billy’s hand to haul him up, then grabbed his striped tie and turning it once around his palm like a leash to lead him around the corner into his bedroom. Billy giggled, letting Dom push him down on the bed.
Billy flopped across the pillows, looking so uncharacteristically debauched, which was a sight. Tidy-to-a-fault Billy, with his shirt coming apart and tie all askew, jeans tenting out over his hard-on. He clawed his tie apart, tossing it to the floor and pulling his glasses off, setting them on the bedside table without looking away, since Dom was slowly dragging his own tie from his collar, dropping it on the floor near Billy’s.
He quirked his lips at the glasses from where he stood at the bed’s lower corner. "Thought you needed those," he commented, biting his lip flirtily.
"I do," Billy murmured, tucked one hand behind his mussed up hair to better watch Dom undress. "Up close, for reading. Forget I’m wearing them, most of the time."
Dom rounded his eyebrows as his fingers traveled down his shirt buttons, "Old man."
"Says the wee trollop doing a striptease in my bedroom," Billy’s eyes sparked hot, eyes dropping down the length of his body like they were tumbling down a precipice. "By all means, continue."
"Is that what this is?" Dom grinned, "Don’t I need a little bom-chicka-wow-wow or something?" He gave himself a little rhythm from his pelvis for a minute, propping a knee on the corner of the bed. But instead of continuing, he left his shirt hanging open and leaned over, tugging off Billy’s shoes one at a time, and then his socks by the toes, hands smoothing over his ankles and the arches of his feet until his toes curled. He crawled up, catlike over Billy’s legs, watching his pupils dilate farther. Dropping low with a grin, he kissed the triangle of skin exposed just below Billy's belly button between the half-undone sides of shirt, hearing him suck a breath in from above. He kissed his way up, darting his tongue above his navel, tugging the remaining couple of buttons open with his teeth before he rose up and walked on his knees around him, until they were tucked neatly under Billy’s armpits.
"Can you still see without those?" he rasped, thumbing open one of the buttons on the fly of his jeans and tilting his head toward the glasses on the nightstand. "Up close and all."
"Christ, you’re so-" Billy took a shaky breath, eyes darting from Dom’s bared stomach to his nipples to the crotch directly in front of his face, "Such a fucking tease."
"Really?" Dom smiled wide, pulling his shirt the rest of the way off as Billy’s hands slid up to his hip pockets, tugging his jeans a little farther down on his hips. "I don’t think that was what you were going to say."
"No?" Billy muttered, fingers tracing the line of definition from his hip down into his denims.
"Sounded for a second like you might pay me a compliment," Dom urged him more upright, bringing Billy’s nose in close proximity to his crotch as Dom tugged one of his arms and then the other up to yank Billy’s shirt awkwardly off and prop the second pillow behind him.
"When have I ever done that?" Billy muttered distractedly, once settled back more comfortably.
Dom considered, quirking his mouth to one side before he brightened, "Outside actually, you said I was endearing. And you just called me a tease."
"You are, that’s hardly a compliment," Billy reached up, stroking one hand up and down the length of Dom’s abs, pausing where the hair thickened and darkened just below his navel. "You’ve always been a great big gorgeous tease."
Dom gasped at the word, and Billy snapped his mouth and eyes tight at the slip, covering them with a hand warm from Dom’s skin.
Sitting back on Billy’s thighs, Dom tugged the hand away from his face. "Gorgeous?" he asked in a curious whisper.
Billy blushed furiously, eyes looking anywhere but back into his own, close and imploring as they were. "I’ve always thought so," he muttered, chest rising as he sighed, "Drove me crazy, to be so hot for you, when you were having a go at me all the time."
The thrill firing through Dom had him vibrating at such an astonishing secret. It was stunning, to think Billy had thought as much, had even been looking, even with all the flack Dom gave him. It wasn’t something he’d ever expected to hear. He slid forward, kissing him sweetly, until he felt Billy relax and let his hands fall onto his skin once again. Sitting back, Dom let his fingers gently trace the contours of Billy’s face. It was fascinating to be able to do this, finally, to outline the light arch of his brows, the straight slope of his nose, and the incredible bow of his upper lip. "You are too, you know," he said, dropping that word low in his throat. "Gorgeous."
Billy snorted, "Go on, Dom. You don’t have to say so just because I did."
"I’m not," Dom insisted, "I’ve been staring at you all semester, you know," He leaned in to kiss the flat of Billy’s cheek, and smiled. "I’ve got sketchbooks full of your face to prove it."
"Bullshit," Billy laughed.
"I’ll show you sometime," Dom promised.
"You’ve got sketchbooks full of Bloom’s arse too. I don’t even want to know what you’ve done with Elijah."
Dom chuckled, "Lij has never let me do anything beyond take his picture. And he gets pissy if any of them come off as remotely twinky. Doesn’t think he actually is, it must be something I’ve done."
"What’s up with him?" Billy huffed an breath, "He’s always such a prick."
Dom hummed, sliding down to lie on top of him as he considered how to answer. "He’s just... been on the defensive all his life, I guess. The way his dad expects him to be, all balls and machismo, when he’s actually just really sweet and harmless." He nudged the round of his nose into Billy’s cheek. "So have you, eh?"
"I suppose," Billy exhaled heavily, "‘S what happens when people make a point to harass and annoy someone for no reason. You’re annoying me right now."
"Am I?" Dom lifted up a little at that.
"Yeah," Billy pushing his hips up against Dom’s to illustrate, "Is it later yet?"
Dom laughed lowly, pressing his own hips down just to see Billy’s eyes roll back as they dropped closed. "Did I say something about later?"
"You said I could fuck you later," Billy insisted, pushing his fingers against the muscles in Dom’s back, "I remember."
"And here I thought you appreciated me for my wit."
Billy boldly reached down and tugged Dom’s pelvis as close as possible, "Your wit’s been tormenting me almost as much as your arse." His hands squeezed, as if realizing what they’d just come upon, thumbs stroking over the denim seam down the middle. "Why are there still clothes?"
Dom laughed and kissed Billy hard, sweeping through his mouth and grinding their hips together with the nearly painful scrape of denim before he pulled himself fully free, Billy’s strong arms reluctant to let go. He undid Billy’s belt first, tugging his fly open as Billy helpfully shoved his jeans down and kicked them unceremoniously off. Dom raised his eyebrows as he inched Billy’s boxers down. "Did a little manscaping, did we?" he asked, throwing the clothes off the bed.
"Shut it," Billy went pink as Dom pulled them the rest of the way down and off, "Found the attachment thing to my shaver. Thought about doing my chest too."
Dom gasped, putting his hands over Billy’s little pink nipples protectively, "Don’t you dare."
"No?"
"No way," he ran his hand through it, still surprised by how much he liked the chest hair. Petting that hand down to his crotch, he pulled his fingers through the neatened but not naked trimming down there, the way he did himself. The very idea that Billy had done it because someone-Dom-was actually looking now was both amusing and surprisingly sweet. He gave Billy a little smile, "I like this, though."
He ran into the problem of trying to kick off his own shoes while simultaneously taking Billy’s hard, red cock in hand and thumbing open his own fly, which mostly just made him lose his balance. Billy smirked, palming himself while Dom sat back with a shrug and tugged his shoes and socks off. He took the strip of condoms and tube of lube out of his pocket, tossing them on the bedspread before he peeled the his fly apart and shucked the jeans down and to the floor, but Billy’s eyes had followed the accessories, tentatively turning the tube over on the blankets, another small reminder of his inexperience.
Lying back alongside him, Dom searched his face. "What’re you thinking?" he asked. He doubted there was fear behind it, but clearly there was something going on behind his eyes.
Billy just shook his head, dropping the lube in the narrow space between them and turning on his side toward him. His hand traced Dom’s collarbone, slipped down to brush over the dark red disk of his nipple, making him bite his lip. Given that, he pushed Dom over on his back, crawling up over him to tip down and taste the little hardened nub of it, and the other.
Dom sprawled, letting Billy explore, watching while he traced the shapes of his body with his fingers and then with his lips and tongue, mapping his shoulders, stomach, thighs, and pelvis until Dom was breathing quite hard. He felt like one of Billy’s pieces of museum art whose details he paid so much loving attention. He rumbled a laugh to himself.
"What are you giggling at now?" Billy murmured from down near his groin, his cock bobbing hopefully off his stomach at the proximity.
"I was just wondering if you’d do this to the statue of David, given the chance."
Billy snickered. "Not likely. He’s a big bloke, you know, seventeen feet tall. Kind of intimidating. Also hard to tip over."
"But hard as a rock all the time," Dom quipped, and his erection leapt illustratively as Billy erupted another laugh against his hip, then crawled back up to his face. "Are you always this chatty in bed?"
Dom pursed his lips. "Not always," he reached down, getting both Billy and himself in one hand and stroking lightly, watching Billy’s eyelids and his jaw go lax. Rolling him to his back again, he found the condoms and lube between folds of the quilt, squirting a little of it in his hand and letting it lightly coat Billy’s cock as he gave it a lazy tug. The rest he rubbed over his own, enjoying the warmth and ease of it over his skin before he ripped a condom from the strip and tore it open with his teeth, tossing the rest onto the nightstand. Rolling it down on Billy, he found the lube again to coat his fingers and reached behind himself.
It had actually been quite awhile since he’d been laid, having been pursuing Billy in the last few months. Not that he didn’t wank plenty, but he hadn’t bottomed in a while either, probably not since last year. He tipped back down to Billy’s mouth, tongues twisting messily as he tried and failed to multitask. It wasn’t long before Billy’s hand was following his arm back to what he was doing.
Dom lifted his upper leg helpfully, murmuring, "Go this way." Billy grabbed for the tube between them to slick his own fingers and reached between his legs, slipping back behind his balls. Dom hissed as Billy’s index pushed inside, between his own two fingers from the back.
"Does it hurt?" Billy asked.
Dom shook his head, taking a deep breath as his forehead bumped and then braced against Billy’s. "Feels good," he whispered, his own breathing go deep and heavy again as his body opened up and warmth fired through him. He withdrew his own fingers, letting Billy take over that entirely and reached down to stroke Billy’s prick again. "You’ve never done this? To yourself?"
"A little," Billy confessed, tipping his hips up into Dom’s grip while still pushing his narrow little fingers-two now-in and back out, quite gently, his wrist rubbing the underside of Dom’s balls with each movement. "Didn’t spend that much time on it, really. It did hurt."
"Silly Billy," Dom breathed a laugh. "It hurts the first few times, I won’t lie. Or if your top is just huge and not careful about it. It’s just really intense until you get use to it. But then it’s the best thing, Bills. I come so hard from it."
"Fuck," Billy groaned, pulling his fingers out to bring Dom closer, "I want that, want to make you come."
"Yeah," Dom lifted up, straddling him and squirted a generous amount of lube into his hand to slick Billy. He kneed farther up, reaching back to guide Billy’s cock to his arsehole, watching him shudder as he bore down on it, felt him slide slowly in. Billy’s hands shakily grabbed for his hips, legs squirming on the blankets as he locked eyes with Dom above him, mouth dropping open.
Dom smiled down at him, stopping his descent halfway and lifting slowly back up, "Good?"
"Fuck yeah," Billy gasped, and as Dom pressed down again, he got his heels braced and thrust up, getting himself fully seated inside with a surprised noise. Dom groaned, lifting up as Billy pulled back and did it again, and again. His attempts were erratic, over-enthusiastically trying to set a pace faster than Dom’s and getting dislodged. His eyes popped open at such sudden lack of sensation and looked so distraught that Dom giggled.
"Easy, Bills," he said, guiding Billy back in again before he reached back with both hands, one on each of Billy’s thighs to both hold them down and brace himself. Arching his back, he used his thigh muscles to rise and fall with some more momentum, moaning at how Billy’s cock plumbed right up against his prostate. He heard a string of filth come from Billy’s mouth and felt his fingers dig into his thighs. "Like that?" he gasped.
"Fucking hell, your arse is fucking magic," Billy’s voice stuttered, wild and unsteady.
Laughing, Dom sat back up straight, lifting up onto his feet to get the leverage to bounce right on him, "Your cock’s pretty fucking amazing too," he breathed between grunts. The expression on Billy’s face was absolute awe, his eyes completely dazed and beautiful mouth open, releasing sounds in time to the rhythm of their fucking. His cheeks were so pink the freckles there stood out, and Dom couldn’t help but lean closer to brush them with kisses. Billy whimpered, turning to find and seize his mouth with his own.
Suddenly Billy heaved them both up, gathering Dom in a tangle of arms and legs in that astonishing strength till they were both sitting upright, Dom still cradled in his lap and wriggling. Without pulling out, he tipped Dom between his thighs to his back, lifting his hips to get his own legs under him and pull Dom’s pelvis more securely back into his own, driving his cock back in deeply with a growl.
Dom laughed, pulling his knees back and bracing his bare feet against the bulging muscles of Billy’s arm and shoulder. He’d been manhandled plenty, but usually by guys considerably bigger than himself. Having Billy do it was easily one of the hotter things he’d experienced. He watched Billy sliding a hand down the inside of his thigh and try to reestablish a pace from this new position. "I see how it is," he murmured, low and sexy, licking his lips, "Wanna be in charge, Mr. Boyd?"
Billy breathed a laugh, sinking in deep and getting a groan out of Dom for it. He pulled back, all the way out, having to grip himself at the base to push back in, a curse falling out of his mouth. He did it again, letting just the head of his cock push in and back out.
Dom let his head drop back and breathed, knowing exactly what Billy was doing as he watched with hooded eyes. "Feels fantastic, doesn’t it, my arse right round your cockhead, yeah?" Dom deliberately tightened up his pelvic muscles, and grinned as Billy’s face scrunched up in complete ecstasy. "Gotcha."
"Fuck, that... fucking mouth of yours," Billy gritted out.
"Could do that too," Dom licked his lips messily again, making Billy growl and drop down to kiss him, hard and searing as his hips worked in circles, hitting a pace and drive that tipped a delicate balance, making Dom gasp with every stroke at the white hot pleasure of it. "Christ, Billy, yeah."
The sheer sound of Billy grunting in his ear and fucking him deep as he had him folded in half with his head nearly hanging off the back of the mattress shot Dom’s self control all to hell. He’d imagined this, fantasized about it, what Billy would sound like, how he’d feel, whether he’d be nervous and too careful. But the reality was that Billy was hard and strong above him, inside him, fucking him with a instinctual carnal need that pushed every button Dom needed him to.
"Oh god. Oh fuck, Billy, yeah," the words started tumbling out between moans and gasps. "Fuck me. Harder. Hard as you want."
"Christ," Billy breathed and did, bracing his arms on the bed, his hips slapping up against the backs of Dom’s thighs, his rhythm going completely primal. It gave Dom room to grab his cock, ratcheting up the tension swirling around and starting to collect in his balls. Above him, Billy’s pumping made the moans and breaths from his throat interrupted, an almost-vibrato of song, his skin shiny with sweat, muscles that were always hidden under clothes tight and working hard. Dom jerked his hand up and down his prick, the other reaching down and below to feel where they were connected, to feel Billy’s cock pounding into him.
"You’re so fucking sexy, Billy," he breathed, right before his stomach and arse and balls clenched and he came with a whimper, a string of white shooting across his own chest and the rest oozing onto his belly.
"Oh fuck, Dom," Billy gasped, shoving deep into him, a strong telltale tremble going through him as Billy’s voice went abruptly high and full of desperate release.
Their breathing heaved together, Billy still firmly planted inside him as they searched for air. When Billy’s eyes opened and found his, the first thing he did was push an arm under Dom’s shoulder and scoot them both back a little bit, enough to get the mattress back under Dom’s head. "Sorry," he murmured, and gave an enormous exhale, palming one side of Dom’s face and dropping his face into the crook of his neck.
Dom hummed, petting one hand up and down Billy’s back, enjoying the puffs of his hot breath and his comforting weight pressing him down. It was far too soon when Billy apologized again, "Sorry, don’t mean to squash you."
"No... you’re not heavy," Dom insisted, but he’d already lifted off, breath hissing through his teeth as he slowly pulled out. He scrunched his face in disgust, plucking at the condom’s edge and then at the filled tip, before he laughed and probably would’ve blushed if his face wasn’t already red with exertion. "How do I get this thing off?"
Dom chuckled, sitting up to gently slip it off Billy’s softening prick with as little fuss as possible. He tied it, dropping it off the edge of the bed and noting where it landed so he could pick it up later. He pushed Billy back up toward the pillows and lay half on top of him, getting a thigh between his legs and tugging the half of the quilt they weren’t laying on around the pair of them as Billy gave a shiver at the chill air penetrating his sweaty, cooling skin.
"So was it good for you?" Dom joked, pulling a laugh from Billy immediately at the cliché.
"Fuck yes," he giggled, his breath still evening out, but his body loosening to the fully sated sprawl of a good lay. "Was it good for you?" he aimed to kid back, apple green eyes flicking to find his when Dom didn’t answer. He smiled, asking again in a shy whisper, "Was it?"
Dom stretched up, nuzzling against his nose and cheek softly, giving him a genuine answer in a low voice, "Fuck yes," before he kissed his lips and his chin and neck. "Was very, very good."
Billy inhaled deeply, relaxing further, his fingers plucking at the bedspread, belatedly laughing. "Shite, now I have to do laundry again."
Dom lazily necked him, basking in the warmth and smell of the pair of them. "Later. Tomorrow. Sheets are still clean."
Billy rumbled a laugh that shook them both. "So you’re sleeping here, eh? Settling right in?" He teased, and Dom leveled a sparkling, hopeful gaze at him and kissed his mouth again. "I have work tomorrow, Dom," Billy reminded, sighing as he caressed Dom’s back under the blanket. "Which means I’ve got to shower. I smell."
"You smell like me," Dom rumbled with a grin, nipping his chin.
Aye," Billy poked him in the chest, that was still decorated with a sticky streak of his own come, "Filthy bastard. Not a good aroma for framing people’s pretty photos." He punctuated that with another poke.
Dom grumbled, inhaling their combined scent on Billy’s skin once more before he sat up, tugging Billy with him. "Fine, fine. Come on, you."
He frogmarched Billy to the bathroom, both giggling as Dom eyed and then palmed Billy’s little arse on the way. Billy flipped on the tap, turning awkwardly back to Dom, still standing naked in the tiny loo. "It takes a minute or two to warm up." He scratched his head, darting his eyes out the door, "I’ve, ah, only got the one big towel."
Dom shrugged, biting his lip at Billy’s sudden return to nerves in the too-bright light. Once the water started to steam and Dom followed him into the little stand-up shower, tugging the curtain around them, Billy seemed even more unsure.
Grinning, Dom found the shampoo on a wire rack hanging from the shower head, and set to lathering Billy’s hair while he tentatively touched his chest again.
"Do all your dates end like this, then?" Billy asked. "Showers and sleepovers?"
"Dunno," Dom quipped, smiling as he dipped in close to kiss Billy’s nose, and then his mouth, wiping foam from his forehead to keep it from running in his eyes. "It’s my first date."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN